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There is nothing that I can say to make anything better, so know that you and your family are in our prayers. Losing any loved one is painful, never mind a parent. I have a feeling that he won't stop cheering for you, no matter what!

From the other deaf guy on this forum… I haven't been active on these forums for a couple years- life gets in the way, but pop in occasionally and started following your blog… Our prayers go out to you Jen and Adam.

Having had the pleasure of walking with Adam for most of his attempt (he had to catch me first and I made him work at it!,) I have to say it was not an easy decision for him to get off the trail. I will let him respond later, and I know he will be making a blog entry sometime this weekend about his decision.

I know for me, this was my second attempt to thru-hike. And I realized I just don't like being away from everything and everyone for that long of a time. It is a blast, it was a lot of fun and the people are great. But to thru-hike, you kind of have to let everything go behind you, leave everything behind at home and that is not an easy thing to do. I love hiking, I love hanging and I love not having anything to think about other than where the next water stop or resupply is. But unless you have very little else going on in your life and nothing better to do, as well as an ability to put all the people and things in your life second to the goal you want to accomplish of finishing the trail, it becomes a weight to carry that you really can't dump off in the next hiker box. I would love to do nothing but hike all summer and enjoy the physical challenges of that. I miss that part of it already, as well as meeting the other people out there doing it for the love of the hiking. But there are so many trails, and so many places to go and see and do things at that it is hard to justify spending so much time on one trail for me. I like a good 100-300 miles on the trail, 20-30+ miles a day. After that, it is monotony for me. Once you break the momentum, it is hard to get that back. And as soon as your head isn't in it anymore, what is the point?